My Entry For the Kia Sorento Ultimate Road Trip Sweepstakes

Road Scholar
Wherever you are, whatever religion you cling to (or none at all), you know it's holiday time. And holidays, among other things, mean movement. Travel to and from. In the mind, from the home to the airport. Home to store. Store to home. From your lips to God's ears. Whatever the case may be, the month between, say, November 25 and December 25, is super malleable. As opposed to mighty malleable (in a Gabby Hayes or Festus, of that old TV Western with Marshall Dillon ... whatchamacalit? The Rifleman?), which is too close for comfort, in tone, to Mighty Mouse. But to get to the point, a Web site I follow, Mom Logic, has posed an intriguing question: "If you could take your family on a road trip anywhere, where would you go and why?"
You can find their post here: http://community.momlogic.com/group/bloggingmamas/forum/topics/win-big-in-momlogics-kia
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Before parenthood descended on us like a plague of Japanese beetles on a crabapple tree or a picturesque waterfall in Costa Rica (take your pick; for us, it could be the same thing on the same day, depending on our 26-month-old's whims and whines through Terrible Two Town!), my husband and I had a daydream of taking our favorite classic car, the unfairly maligned Edsel, on an around-the-world trip.

Of course, nowadays, that's just not feasible. World conflicts; hatred of the United States thanks to, um, politics; the skyrocketing cost of petrol; safety; and two small children are enough of a roadblock to that plan.

Not to say that it was a plan. It was more of a vague vagary.

In any case, to answer the question, our ultimate road trip today would involve both kids sleeping or playing peacefully as our old red van cut a swath through the Midwest and toward the East Coast--over the Mississippi River and through the woods of Kentucky (or bluegrass, perhaps!?), all the way to grandma's house in Virginia. Friends and family is really the name of the game at this stage of life. Our newborn has never met Grandma and Grandpa on one side of the family. He's never met his aunt, uncle, and cousin. We could see friends, for, my friends who read this blog, time is too, too short. You really have to seize the day while the day exists!

Then, once we got done with the East Coast, which we'd like to tour up and down in said beaten-up magical mystery machine, again with peaceable tots in tow (as I intimated, what a pipe dream! hee-hee), we would head back through the country's bread basket and out toward the heat and desert to see more friends ... in Arizona. And, simply put, to see new places as a family and to carve out our own NEW AND IMPROVED dreams.

What we have now is so precious and so perfect in its imperfections and inexactitudes, it makes me shiver. I love my life, for I am so, so lucky. (That's why I can never win the lottery, because I have too much good luck with finding a loving hubs, his family, our friends, and our kiddos. Fate gives only so much luck to one person!)

With all this in mind--and remembering, per Mrs. Rosen, "life always matters VERY MUCH!"--let me know what your ultimate road trip would be.

And, just maybe, you'll be a Road Scholar like moi! : )